Bite Me
by Alexandra Lyman
Summary: Once upon a time Emma Swan was a princess. But that was before she died and was reborn as a vampire, forever thirsting for human blood. Now she works nights as a bounty hunter, chasing down bail jumpers with her enhanced senses and she's out on the hunt after a mysterious dark-haired man whose blood calls to her like none before. Can she resist taking a bite?


**Just a few little notes about this story first, it has a bit of an open ending but I'm marking it as complete since I have other stories I need to finish that I've been stuck on and this was just to get the creative process flowing again. It is a vampire AU, so there's biting, and blood drinking, but it's not super graphic or heavy on the gore factor. I've borrowed "Rogers" from S7 as Killian's alias, but this is still a Captain Swan story and no Season 7 characters appear. If that bugs you, sorry, but you have been warned.**

**Bite Me**

Once upon a time, Emma Swan was a princess.

Not one that was famous, or noteworthy, or of any great importance. Her royal house had been a minor one and was long forgotten, from when what was now Germany had been ruled by a collection of provincial dynasties and grand duchies, but she'd been born a real, actual princess, in a castle nestled deep in a forest of ancient myths and folklore that warned pretty young maidens not to wander alone in the woods after dark.

She'd died as a princess too, in the arms of the man who'd hid his sharp teeth behind a lazy smile and lured her away from the safety of the tall stone walls to take both her virginity and something far more precious from her on one moonless night, centuries ago.

Her life was supposed to have been a fairy tale, of balls and banquets and happily ever after with a handsome prince.

Now if was a horror story, of blood and death and a thirst that could never truly be quenched.

Emma Swan was a vampire, and she was on the hunt.

For a bail jumper, not for blood (although she'd take a little of that too, a girl had to eat, after all) just another scumbag who hadn't shown up for court and disappeared into the night. Bounty hunting was the perfect job for a vampire, she was a predator at heart, and she could set her own hours and work exclusively after sunset without raising any suspicion. And if a skip was a little paler once she'd brought them in and collected her reward? Well, no one ever noticed the tiny little bite marks on their necks.

She hadn't drunk for days, too preoccupied with her latest case to hunt for mere food. Not that it was ever that hard to find sustenance, Emma wasn't a princess anymore but she'd been bestowed many other titles by men over the years, a doll, a looker, a fox, a babe. It wasn't difficult to entice one into the woods, or an alley, or back to her apartment for "coffee,", letting them think they had been the one to seduce her and then turning the tables on them once they were alone and there was no one to hear them scream when the sexy, flirty blonde turned into a stone-cold bloodsucker. Sometimes she just drank, piercing a vein with teeth that went pointed and sharp as fangs at the scent of the blood moving just beneath the surface of the skin, rich, red elixir that was thick on her tongue and gave eternal life to the dead and damned. They stopped screaming then, Emma could make it feel good, so good that they surrendered willingly into her embrace and would let her drain them completely dry if she wanted to, although she hadn't done that in years. Too messy, to have to find a way to dispose of the body afterwards, and too complicated these days to have meals suddenly go "missing."

If she wanted to play with her food then she'd take them to bed first, on the nights when the need between her legs equalled her hunger and it was even more satisfying to fuck and feast, sometimes doing both at the same time.

That's what *he* had done, coaxing her thighs open with his pretty lies and false promises on that night so long ago, stealing her innocence before sliding his fangs into her slender neck, only he hadn't stopped when her heart did.

Either way, Emma made sure they forgot exactly what had been done to them and they woke up in the morning with nothing more than a headache from the blood loss and what they thought was a dream of a beautiful woman with lips stained crimson and skin as pale as moonlight.

She didn't dream, not since her last one turned into a nightmare from which she'd never woken up.

The bar where they were supposed to meet sounded like a dive (The Dark Hollow? Seriously, what kind of name was that?) but it was surprisingly upscale, sleek and modern, the kind of place where all the liquor was top shelf and the staff could double as models. Still, Emma turned her share of heads when she walked in and she could hear heartbeats around the room speed up as the men (and a few of the women) took her in. Tight dress, towering heels, tousled curls, she was dressed to kill and more than capable of actually doing it. The urge never fully went away, but tonight she'd have to settle for the satisfaction of only capturing her prey instead. She quickly scanned the dim interior and zeroed in on a man sitting smack dab in the middle of the room, seated alone at a table for two. As if he sensed her arrival he looked up from his phone, meeting her gaze and giving a smile that was the most dangerous thing in the room after her.

John Rogers. It was almost certainly an alias, probably a bit of identity theft on top of the charges of stealing from his employer, Gold Enterprises. He had dark hair, just the right amount of stubble on a jawline that could cut glass, and eyes as blue as the midday sky.

Not that Emma had actually seen the midday sky in person since the day she'd died, a perfect, clear day where the sun was warm and the gentlest of breezes had stirred her long skirts about her ankles as she walked into the forest without knowing that she'd just lost blue sky forever under the thick canopy of the trees and the shadow that lurked on the path ahead.

The memory made her falter for a moment before she pushed it away and strode right up to his table, putting a swing in her hips that made his heartbeat stutter and skip a beat. Emma was a vampire, but she was still a woman and it was gratifying to have such an effect on him, even though she was only here for the bounty and the unofficial bonus that had been offered by the owner of Gold Enterprises to bring him in and face justice.

"Anna?" he asked, getting to his feet at her approach. Emma smiled and nodded, she'd used an alias as well on the hookup app where she'd finally found a profile picture that matched his mug shot. His smile grew even wider. "I'm John. It's a pleasure to finally meet you."

He had an accent, something that hadn't been listed in the police report and the sound of it sent a tingle right down her spine. One of his hands was unnaturally stiff, covered by a black glove that matched his black jeans and black vest. The missing hand had been in the report, with a notation that he wore a prosthetic but there'd been no info about how he'd lost the limb and no one at Gold Enterprises knew the story either. He pulled her chair back and waited until she was settled before sitting back down in his own seat, he might be a thief, but he clearly had some manners. There was a glass in front of him already, half-filled with a dark amber liquor that carried the rich aromas of burnt sugar and heavy spice.

Rum.

Emma ordered wine, she could eat and drink like an ordinary human, but her body took no nourishment from food and nothing could truly slake her thirst except human blood. Everyone tasted slightly different, some people were sweeter, like smooth chocolate or ripe berries, and some were more savoury, like a sharp cheddar or perfectly rare steak.

John Rogers looked like he'd taste like the rum, sweet and spicy at the same time.

And _damn_, if she didn't want a drink of him.

"More wine?" John asked, after she'd finished her second glass and they'd shared a plate of artful little hor d'oeuvres that did nothing except whet her appetite for something else instead.

"No, I'm good," Emma replied, pushing the empty glass away and eyeing the vein that ran along the inside of his wrist when he reached for the last canape.

"What's the matter love, a bit worried you'll find me too irresistible after another libation?"

From another man it would have come across as smarmy, but somehow he pulled it off. She ran a foot teasingly up his calf under the table, watching his throat bob with a heavy swallow. The honey trap was the easiest way to corral a skip, since Emma found most men couldn't resist a pretty face and the thought of getting lucky even when they should be lying low. John Rogers might be more attractive and have a larger vocabulary than the average deadbeat, but he wasn't any different than the rest of them and when she leaned forward and rested a hand high on his thigh she could hear his blood pumping even faster through his enticing veins, pooling a few inches away from her pointed nails.

"Who says I want to resist you?" she murmured in his ear. The muscle under her hand twitched and he quickly tossed back the last of his rum.

"Well then, I suppose I just have one more question. Your place or mine?"

Normally she'd invite whoever she was tracking back to her place and then take them to the nearest precinct instead, minus a pint or two of their blood. The Rogers case was different though, since whatever it was he'd stolen from Gold Enterprises (the police report was strangely vague and just called it "something of value") hadn't been found after the initial arrest and stringing him along for a little while longer might be the only chance to recover it. There was just one hurdle, a not insignificant one, to her plans.

But the reward would be worth it in the end.

She slid her hand the tiniest bit higher. "Why don't you show me yours?"

There was a flush on his whiskered cheeks as more blood rose to the surface and if Emma still had a pulse, it would be racing with anticipation.

"If the lady insists," he said, voice a low rasp that curled enticingly between her legs while he pulled out his wallet and carelessly tossed a few bills on the table without even looking. They rose in unison, ignoring the knowing looks from the neighbouring table and making their way to the door with his hand settling on the small of her back to guide her. Outside the night air was cool, the sky a deep indigo and plush as velvet while the pavement was slick and the sidewalks damp. It must have rained while they were flirting over overpriced drinks and puff pastry, Emma should have heard it with her vampiric senses but she'd been too focused on John Rogers and the ancient dance of predator and prey. He clearly thought he was the hunter, seducing her into going home with him with his dark good looks and silver tongue, getting what he wanted and then swiping onto the next girl on the app without a second thought. His hand moved, brushing her hip and she tensed, wondering if he was going to cop a feel and grope her ass right outside the bar. Or try to, anyway, since she could break all his fingers before he could blink. But then it was pulled away as he went to shrug off his jacket, draping the soft leather over her shoulders instead.

"While I must say that you cut quite the figure in that dress, it's a bit of a walk to my flat and there's no Swyft drivers around right now."

She realized with a jolt that he'd given her his jacket because it was cold. Emma was _dead_, she didn't get cold, or hot, not anymore, and she wasn't used to anyone being concerned if she did. She'd been cold when she died, wracked with chills as her life slowly dripped into her murderer's mouth and he hadn't bothered to cover her, dress still hiked to her waist and pale legs splayed open as he drank at his leisure. The twin scars that were left on her neck were a reminder, to never trust anyone again.

John didn't care, not really. He just wanted to get laid.

That's what made her cold, not the nip in the air, cold and hard under her crimson dress and fuck-me heels even as she gave a kittenish smile and thanked him with a delicate hand brushing his chest. _She _was the real hunter tonight, for his bounty *and* his blood, and she was going to get both.

They walked together like lovers without a care in the world and eyes only for each other, each carrying their own secrets behind the flirty looks and sly innuendo. Emma could see perfectly for blocks and scent everything in the air, the exhaust from cars that had driven by hours earlier, the smell of chicken noodle soup being heated up in one of the apartments above them, every note in the perfume a hooker on the corner was wearing (lilacs, white tea and middlemist flowers) as well as other, more hidden odors, like the drugs in the hooker's blood from when she'd shot up not too long ago, the refuse running through the sewers deep underneath the asphalt and that there was something dead in a nearby dumpster. Too large to be a rat or a raccoon, it was rotting away unseen underneath old coffee grounds and moldy bread.

Most of all she smelled her prey, the metal of his jewelry, rings on his fingers and a necklace just visible at the open collar of his shirt, the fainter scent of whatever shampoo he used still clinging to his dark hair, and the more recent smell of the food they'd just eaten at the bar mixed with rum on his breath.

And his blood.

Always the blood.

He smelled good enough to eat.

John's flat was a small apartment in an older, nondescript building not far from the harbour. He put his key in the lock and opened the door with an offhand, _"_Come on in," that solved a major problem for Emma. Thanks to his careless invite she was able to cross the invisible barrier and step over the threshold, her stiletto heels making no noise on the floor. Inside it was shadowed and dim, but she could see everything perfectly and took a quick glance around. Couch, coffee table, TV, nothing out of the ordinary but there was also nothing personal about any of it. There was no mail left sitting out, no photos on display, no knicknacks or any kind of hint about the life of the man who lived here and while his scent was present, it was shallow and recent and hadn't had time to fully permeate the space. The apartment was probably a temporary residence, a safe house where he could hide from both the cops and Gold Enterprise's extensive private security, hopefully with whatever he'd stolen from them.

A lamp switched on with a faint click and bathed the room in a soft yellow glow. "You know, I was just about to delete that app when your message popped up."

"Were you?" Emma asked, turning to face him and taking a step back as she did, deeper into the apartment and encouraging him to follow. And follow he did, reaching to pluck the jacket from her shoulders and dropping it over the arm of the couch. His voice was pitched low, intimate, still thinking that he had the upper hand.

"Aye. Never quite found what I was looking for on it, until I met you."

Emma would have said it was just another line, a bit of flattery to help get her out of her dress and into his bed, if it wasn't for her extra little superpower. Vampires had more than just a thirst for blood and eternal youth, they also had special gifts that had given rise to the host of legends and superstitions about the children of the night. Some could jump so high and for so long that it looked like they were flying clear across the sky, some could control and command animals, like a female vampire Emma had met once in the 1920s who kept a pack of spotted dogs to do her bidding, and Emma herself had discovered not long after being turned that she could tell when humans were lying.

John Rogers was being sincere.

Maybe that was why she gave into the impulse, not to bite him, but to kiss him, closing the brief gap between their bodies to press her lips to his. He reacted instantly, mouth opening to match the movement of hers, hand pulling her to him so that they were pressed together from shoulder to knee and a deep groan rumbled in his broad chest at the contact that she felt echo through her right down to her toes. Their noses bumped and their tongues met, she sucked a little too hard on his bottom lip but the rock of his hips to press the hard outline of his erection to her stomach when she did it again told her that he liked it a little rough.

"Fuck," he gasped when they broke apart, pupils dialated with lust and cheeks flushed nearly scarlet under his stubble.

"I think that was implied," Emma laughed. She never slept with skips, but there were hours left before dawn and her thirst was quickly being matched by the growing ache between her legs, one almost as insistent as the urge to feed.

"A gentleman never presumes such a thing," John said with a wink and a grin, another line

that should sound cheesy as all hell and Emma had heard a lot of cheesy pickup lines over the centuries, but somehow he was just enough of a charming bastard to make it work. She almost didn't want to turn him to the cops in at the end of the night.

Almost.

By the time they stumbled into the bedroom Emma still had her heels on but her dress was on the floor somewhere out in the hall, left in a tangled pile with his discarded vest and belt. His shirt was barely clinging to his shoulders, open down the front to reveal a muscular chest covered with a thick dusting of hair that ran down his stomach and disappeared into his boxer briefs. The jeans were undone too, she'd been a bit careless with her strength and hoped he didn't notice that she'd accidentally twisted the button right off before tugging down the zipper. Since his eyes had rolled back in his head and he'd let out a strangled gasp of pleasure when she slid her palm over the bulge of his erection and gave it a good squeeze, she was pretty sure he hadn't seen the little bit of metal rolling across the floor and disappearing under the bed.

She gave another squeeze, just to be sure, and certainly not to hear that delicious noise bubble out of his throat again.

The room itself was like the rest of the apartment, as impersonal as a hotel. Bed, check. Emma could smell that the sheets were fresh and clean, which was a point in his favour. Bedside table with a lamp on top, check. Generic Ikea dresser, check.

A ship in a bottle.

Her eyes narrowed over John's shoulder. It was sitting on the dresser next to some loose change, an actual ship in a bottle. The ship itself was finely detailed, the hull painted with yellow and blue stripes in perfect lines, miniature sails raised on tiny rigging that must have taken hours to set into place. It almost looked real.

For a moment she wondered if that's what he'd stolen from Gold Enterprises, but she dismissed the thought just as quickly. A major corporation wouldn't go to such lengths to recover a kitschy bit of bric-a-brac, it had to be something like a confidential client list or important files. She turned her attention back to the man in front of her, still far too dressed for her liking. Emma went to finish peeling the shirt off his shoulders, only to be stymied when it wouldn't slip off one wrist.

Right, or left, in this case, his missing left hand.

"Ah," he said, when he saw her looking down at the gloved prosthetic. "Long story, which I'd rather not get into now, but if it's a dealbreaker for you, I understand."

He said it easily enough but he was tense, she could see it in the ripple under his skin as muscles tightened and cords flexed while he braced himself for her answer and she wondered if that had happened before, women walking away after discovering he was different.

As someone who was also different, albeit in a way that wasn't so readily apparent on first glance as a missing limb, Emma felt a pang of sympathy for him. She knew was it was like to lose a part of yourself and never get it back.

"It's not," she assured him, reaching out and grasping the prosthetic as gently as she could. They stayed like that, his chest rising and falling for a few quiet breaths and his long lashes resting against his cheeks until he opened his eyes and instead of a cocky smirk or another come-on, he gave her an unguarded, boyish smile that reminded her of the suitors who used to come pay court to her in her father's castle, when her life was still full of laughter and light.

"Just who are you, Anna?" he whispered, and if her heart wasn't silent and still it would lurch at both the longing in his voice and the sharp reminder that she wasn't that starry-eyed princess anymore who nothing of the evils that could lurk behind a man's pretty words. Who was she? She was death incarnate, the wolf in sheep's clothing with blood on her lips.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" she countered, flip and flirty, knowing that he didn't, not really. Not if he _knew._

"Perhaps I would."

The sentiment was nice, but Emma wasn't the sentimental type so she simply reached behind her back and flicked open her bra, letting the cobwebby lace fall to the floor before thumbing her underwear down her hips and sitting on the edge of the bed to slide the silky bit of nothing off one leg and then the other. The lack of a hand didn't slow him down one whit, he had his shirt completely off and his pants down with speed and dexterity that was impressive even to a vampire. He'd invited her in but she was the one beckoning to him now, sliding back on the duvet and crooking a finger with her tongue just poking from between her teeth. He crawled forward after her on his knees, dark hair falling over his forehead in a careless sweep as his head dipped down and hot breath touched her cool skin.

Lips closed over her nipple, already hard and pebbled with anticipation. She felt it tighten even more when he swirled his tongue around it and flicked the tip before sucking _hard_. He did the same to her other breast, callused fingers tracing delicate patterns on the inside of her hip and she widened her legs, expecting him to settle between them and get on with it like most men did after a bit of foreplay. But he clearly had something else in mind first, moving lower and lower down her body until that warm breath was hovering right over where she ached the most. The blue eyes looked up, reminding Emma of the sky she never saw anymore and had almost forgotten as he waited for her to give him a sign of assent.

A hand on the back of his head was enough and she quickly found herself clutching a fistful of inky hair as his mouth descended and he began to feast. Damn, Emma thought to herself, he was good at this, really fucking _good_, circling with his tongue and increasing the pressure on each pass until she was a writhing mess, hips rocking against his face and desperate for more. Just as she was about to fall over the edge he backed off, using only the softest of licks and the faintest of flicks and if he didn't finish the job then she literally was going to kill him.

"Patience," he whispered at her needy whine, turning his head to press a kiss to the inside of her thigh. "We've all night, love."

All night, but nothing more. That was all she could ever have now with a man.

His beard scraped against the delicate skin, a shocking contrast to the gentleness of his mouth as he went back to his task, working her up again with lips and tongue and fingers. Pleasure sparked along every nerve, building to the peak at a torturous pace until finally, _finally_, he sucked hard on her clit and shoved two fingers deep inside her at the same time. Emma's back arched and her jaw dropped from a silent scream, it looked like agony but it was pure ecstasy, her thighs flexing and tightening around his head until the climax finally faded and she went limp against the mattress, boneless and spent. John went up on his knees, looming above her and she didn't even care about how smug the bastard looked, he'd more than earned it. His lone hand wrapped around his erection and he gave it a few slow pumps, raising an eyebrow and asking another question without words.

Emma answered by letting a bit of her vampire strength loose again, flipping him onto his back and pining his wrists to the bed while she swung her leg over him and straddled his lean hips. He blinked up at her in surprise, face still deliciously damp, his pulse fluttering against her thumbs as rapid as a hummingbird's wings. The hard ridge of his erection was now trapped between them, twitching hot against her stomach while she leaned down and let her breasts brush his chest, scraping her teeth on his neck and making the skin redden before tasting herself when she pressed her lips hungrily to his. The urge to taste _him_ was almost overwhelming as her fingers tightened on his wrists, holding him down, her teeth begged to sharpen behind her kiss, but as he said, they had all night. Or almost, since she couldn't linger too long in his bed and risk the sunrise.

There was also the not so insignificant matter of dropping her alias and turning him over to police custody to deal with, but she'd worry about that later.

Emma was more interested now in the way his stomach muscles clenched when she shifted her hips, the drag of his lips between his teeth and the sharp inhale when she almost, but not quite, took him inside. It was her turn to smirk, teasing and torturing him until she was sure he was about to beg for relief.

"Did you find what you were looking for, Anna?"

She faltered, caught off guard by the unexpected question. "What?"

"Your Happy Ending. The app?" he clarified at her confused look.

Right, the dating app. It had launched with this whole cheesy fairytale theme and commercials about meeting your charming prince and living happily ever after and all that bullshit, but it had quickly morphed into just another hookup app instead, where people got off and got out.

A happy ending.

Life (and death) has taught her that there was no such thing.

"I found you," she said. It was supposed to be flip and flirty, but for some reason it came out far too serious for a one night stand who was looking up at her like she was everything he ever wanted.

The air in the room thickened with tension that only increased as she sank down on him, slowly, inch by inch. Her hands spread flat on his chest to brace herself and she relished the stretch and burn until he was finally buried to the hilt. Emma was dead, had been for centuries, but she felt alive again with a living pulse throbbing inside of her, a heartbeat thudding against her palm and the spreading warmth from the friction as she started to ride him. His knees bent behind her, large feet planting on the bed and finding the leverage to start meeting her moments with his own upward thrusts while she threw her head back and closed her eyes. Their tempo increased of its own volition, a heavy and hot slide of rigid flesh against yielding softness that hovered deliciously on the knife's edge between pleasure and pain. Emma could hear his blood pounding through his veins and the call to her most primal need was almost too much. She fell forward, latching onto his neck with enough force to leave a bruise and only just managing to stop herself from breaking the skin to get to what lay underneath.

"Do it!"

His voice was thick as honey and dripped with promise while his arm wrapped around her back and he turned his head to the side, baring even more of his long throat.

"Bite me!"

It was an invitation Emma couldn't resist and her fangs came out, piercing straight into the plump vein throbbing against her lips. An obscene moan spilled out from above her while her mouth flooded with his blood, warm and rich, like cocoa made fresh on the stove. It was full of life and went straight to her head like alcohol used to but better than any drink or drug could possibly be. And not only did it taste amazing, it briefly tethered them together even more than where they were joined so intimately, letting her feel everything he was currently feeling.

Lust.

_Longing. _

The sensation was overwhelming, he was still inside her, still rocking up with heavy thrusts even as she took deep pulls from his neck that had to be draining his strength. It would be easy, so easy, to take a little _too _much, drink a little _too_ long...and then there was a surge that was almost her undoing as he came undone, the blood flowing even harder as he came and the echo of it triggered her own climax, both of them trembling with his body still locked in hers and his vein still open in her mouth until his loud gasp for air and his sluggish heartbeat broke through the haze of blood and sex like a dash of icy water. Emma forced herself to let go, sealing the wound on his neck before it could scar or before she could give in to the worst of her urges whispering seductively in her ear, the dark desire to turn him into something no one should ever have to become.

To make him like her.

"You knew I was a vampire."

It came out harsh and biting, an accusation, not a question. Once the post-coital and post-feeding bliss had faded and she'd realized what had just happened, Emma had stood up and silently gotten dressed before turning to face John Rogers again, still lounging in the rumpled bed with an amused look as if he didn't have a care in the world and wasn't missing a few pints of his blood.

"I had my suspicions, aye. Confirmed once I saw in person that you don't breathe anywhere near as often as you should and you have no heartbeat or pulse."

She folded her arms across her chest, somehow feeling completely exposed even though he was the one who was still naked, arm propped behind his head and sheet draped low across his hips.

"Most people don't notice that. And even if they did, they don't know vampires are actually real."

A dark brow lifted and he gave her an arch look. "When you lived as long as I have, you learn a thing or two."

Emma snorted at that. Lived as long as he had? "John Rogers" was definitely a false identity, but whoever he really was, he didn't look older than thirty-five. Her skepticism only seemed to amuse him further and he gestured showily along himself, the sheet dipping down even lower with the movement. Fresh with his blood she flushed and looked away, which was stupid considering they'd literally just had sex, but she needed to distance herself from that so she could do what had to be done.

His voice lost that honeyed mirth and went more serious and flat. "Don't let the youthful countenance fool you, darling, like you I am far older than I appear. A few centuries older, in fact."

"How?" she spit out. "You're not-"

"-A vampire like you?" he finished. "No, I'm not. In fact, I'm the opposite. I've been magically cursed with eternal life."

_That _was not what she was expecting, not that Emma even knew what the hell she thought he was going to say, and she stared blankly at him for a few seconds.

"Magically cursed," she repeated at last. "You have got to be kidding me."

"Says the undead vampire who just drank a considerable portion of my blood," he pointed out, and she flushed again with said blood.

"Fine," she said, conceding the point. "You were magically cursed. How?"

His smile curled into something different and for a moment Emma thought she heard the crash of waves upon a shore, the scent of salt in the air and the kiss of the wind on her skin.

"Now that is a rather long and unhappy tale, but let's just say that I once took something of considerable value from a man I considered too cowardly to fight back, and he was, then. Only people sometimes change, don't they, and not always for the better. He came back years later and he was no longer the snivelling coward I'd humiliated in my own arrogance, he was something different, something no longer fully…_human_. He took this-" John held up his stump of a wrist, "-as punishment, and cursed me with eternal life so that I would always have to live with what I'd done. I can't die, and believe me, love, I've tried."

_That_ got Emma's back up at once, a familiar feeling settling between suddenly tense shoulders. "So is that what the whole 'bite me" thing was about? You've got a death wish and you thought a vampire was your answer?

She was moving before he could say anything, tossing clothes onto the bed in a blur and avoiding his piercing blue gaze. "Get dressed. You skipped out on your bail and there's a warrant for your arrest. I'm taking you in."

"Anna-" he tried to protest.

"Emma," she corrected. It would be on the paperwork down at the station, he was going to find out anyway. "Emma Swan, bailbondsperson. You've got five minutes."

She stormed out of his bedroom and shut the door behind her, needing to put some space between them. Not that it helped much, he might be out of sight but his blood was racing through her veins and she could still feel the echo of his body inside hers. This was why she didn't get too close to skips, they all had some ridiculous sob story and claimed someone else screwed them over.

Her fingers crept up to the scar on her neck and groped blindly for the small patch of maimed skin. _Don't trust anyone._

Emma shut out everything else except that. The long years of practice made it quick, if not easy.

She _hated _that it wasn't easy.

It was both too quiet and too noisy in the small apartment. She could hear the hum from the refrigerator, the rumble of pipes in the walls, the footfalls from someone walking around above and the whistle of a breeze coming through an open window in the...

"Shit!"

Emma wrenched the door right off the hinges when she flung it open and rushed back into the bedroom, hearing everything except his heartbeat. Sure enough, a window stood open and the gauzy curtain was fluttering like a sail. She leaned over the sill and saw an iron fire escape attached to the side of the building that led down to the street, when a pair of headlights suddenly sprung to life from a parked car that fishtailed as it pulled away from the curb and took off in a squeal of rubber that made her wince. As keen as her eyesight was, the angle was all wrong for her to catch the license plate and all she got was a glimpse of the driver, clearly him, looking up at the window with an expression that wasn't angry at her deception, wasn't smug at having tricked her, it was just resigned.

And then he was gone.

She spent the next few days cursing herself for her own carelessness in letting him slip away every time she woke when the sun set, she should have kept her guard up and stayed while he got dressed, or at least left the door open, she was a vampire, for fuck's sake, not the naive princess who had died all those years ago. She could handle being in the same room with a naked man for five minutes.

His profile was still up on Happy Ending but the picture had been changed from the mirror selfie he'd used before to one of a swan, something Emma knew had to be a deliberate jab that she'd definitely felt when she first saw it. Her stakeouts at his apartment had been fruitless and his scent was quickly fading, it was clear he wasn't coming back. Not that there was much to come back to, she'd searched the place thoroughly and there was only a few clothes, some barely touched toiletries that were so new the Target receipt was still crumpled up in the trash, and the ship in the bottle.

The ship was now sitting on her coffee table, since it was the only thing that seemed like it might have some sentimental value to whoever John Rogers really was. Or maybe Emma was just kidding herself and he was nothing more than a thief and a liar.

Gold Enterprises had doubled the reward for his capture and every bounty hunter in three states was now out looking for him. It was only a matter of time before someone tracked him down, and while Emma had a lot of advantages over her human competition, she had one big disadvantage in that she couldn't go outside in the daylight. All of her speed and strength were completely useless from dawn until dusk and it grated at her, always a reminder that she was different from everyone else.

She was currently cooped up alone in her own apartment, waiting for the sun to finish dipping below the horizon before she ventured out in search of new leads. She'd woken up a bit early from the deathlike sleep that was her own eternal curse, which happened from time to time. It was because of the dream she'd been having, of a woman she didn't recognize, dark haired, beautiful, dressed in the clothing of another time and holding a large knife with a jagged blade in one hand and a bright red object in the other.

"_Take me away," _the woman whispered. _"Forever."_

When she lifted the knife and pierced it straight through the red thing Emma realized it was a human heart, blood flowing between the woman's fingers and the scent of it hit Emma even in the dream, making her fangs sharpen and jolting her awake.

She was musing on it when her phone buzzed, lighting up with a notification and she snatched it off the table in a blur with sudden wild hope flaring where her heart didn't beat that maybe it was _him,_ messaging her through the chat function on Happy Ending. It quickly turned into a frown of disappointment when she saw it was actually just an email, framed against a photo of the castle where she'd grown up that she'd found online a set as her wallpaper. She thumbed the email open, the frown freezing on her face when she saw what it was.

"Gotcha!" she said out loud to the empty room, shooting the ship in a bottle a triumphant look before jumping to her feet and going straight to her laptop. When she'd first taken on the Rogers case she'd entered his mug shot into a facial recognition program that would auto search the Internet for potential matches. On TV or in a movie it would have spit out a near instant result, but real life didn't work that way and it had been running quietly in the background ever since, going down rabbit hole after rabbit hole of umpteen social media pages, news archives and alumni pages looking for a match. It was a heck of a lot more expensive than a simple Google image search, but the bounty would more than cover the cost and once Rogers had snuck out on her, Emma had to admit that it was personal now, so she'd paid extra for the highest level of data.

And it had returned not one, but *two* potential hits. Emma clicked the first link and watched eagerly as the page loaded, scrolling down until she reached the picture.

And stopped dead. Literally.

It wasn't actually a picture, it was a drawing. Of a man who looked exactly like John Rogers, sketched out in what was probably charcoal on a yellowed piece of paper. They had the same dark hair, the same sharp jaw, same smile that promised danger and excitement both in one fell swoop. But the resemblance wasn't the reason why Emma could feel his blood rushing hot in her ears, it was the other sketch displayed next to his, of a woman with a shawl draped loosely around her shoulders and a large pendant around her neck, staring wistfully out at the viewer from the page.

It was the woman from Emma's dream.

"_Milah."_

The name fell unbidden from her lips as she quickly scanned the site the images were posted on. It was for an antique and consignment shop in Bermuda, and the pair of drawings were up for sale either individually or as a set. The listing stated that they were believed to have been done by the same artist, and were approximately three centuries old.

"_Don't let the youthful countenance fool you, darling, like you I am far older than I appear. A few centuries older, in fact."_

His voice whispered in her ear while she clicked on the other link with a numb finger, not sure what to expect. It opened in a separate tab as a wall of mostly text and the picture itself was little more than a thumbnail. Emma enlarged it to get a better look, even though her vampire sight was more than enough to confirm that it was a perfect match.

This one was a photo, and like the one she'd fed into the program it was another mugshot. She wasn't really surprised that he'd been arrested before, what was surprising was that it was clearly much older than the crisp, digital image that had been taken of John Rogers after he'd been hauled out of Gold Enterprises's downtown headquarters. It was in black and white, faded with age and a corner had been torn away. But it was still him, although he was clean shaven and his hair was cut much shorter, in almost a military look. The placard he was holding read:

STORYBROOKE SHERIFF'S DEPT  
52-07-20  
B&E, VANDAL, THEFT  
JONES, KILLIAN

Jones, Killian.

Rogers, John.

Quickly, Emma clicked back on the charcoal sketch. Sure enough, there, just where the drawing ended at the man's waist, smudgy and indistinct, were the remains of a name. The "K" was still legible, as were the "a" and the"n."

_Killian Jones._

Pieces were rapidly clicking into place as more of the puzzle started to come together. It hadn't been Emma's dream at all, it was _his_, a memory carried in the blood and passed along when she'd drunk from him for so long and so deep, a memory of a dark haired woman named Milah. The knife and the heart didn't make much sense, but dreams were funny that way. John, no, _Killian,_ had said he was cursed with eternal life, and the sketch and the old mug shot certainly seemed to confirm that he actually was telling the truth about that.

Emma went back to the mug shot. B&E, that was shorthand for breaking and entering, vandal, probably a charge of vandalism, and theft. The 52-07-20 took her a moment longer, until she realized it was the _date._ He'd been arrested on July 20th..._1952_. In some place called Storybrooke, wherever that was.

Maine. After a few more clicks she learned that a grad student named Henry Mills was doing an in-depth research project on the history of a small fishing village named Storybrooke, in Maine, and posting parts of it on his blog as he went. The entry with the mugshot had gone up the day before, explaining why the facial recognition program had only just found it. In July 1952 there had been a break in at a local pawn shop that was the talk of the town, if this Henry Mills was to be believed, where windows had been smashed and _"an object of value had been stolen,"_ to quote the pawn shop's owner.

His blood was still warm in her veins, but it suddenly ran cold as Emma read the name of the pawn shop where the theft had taken place.

_Gold & Son Pawnbrokers _

Gold Enterprises.

That couldn't _possibly_ be a coincidence.

_An object of value had been stolen._

Killian had told her that he'd taken something of considerable value from a man who'd later taken his hand and cursed him with eternal life. He'd been arrested four months ago for stealing something of value from Gold Enterprises, and apparently had also stolen something of value almost seventy years ago from Gold & Son Pawnbrokers. It had to be connected, but why, and to what end?

The Rogers case had started out as just another skip, but now it was a mystery that had gotten under Emma's skin as an itch that had to be scratched. Or maybe it was because Killian Jones's blood had turned out to be as potent as a drug and she was desperate for another taste of it, of him, and while she wasn't a princess anymore and hadn't been since the night she'd followed Baelfire into the woods and never went home again, she felt more alive than she had in years as she packed a bag and prepared to set off.

She locked up her apartment and headed down to her old yellow Bug, already anticipating salt air and sea breezes at her destination, it would be a welcome relief to her vampire sense of smell from the city stench. Her tight, honeytrap dresses were left behind in favour of more practical jeans and boots, and she'd also changed her profile photo on Happy Ending to send a pointed message back to the man whose taste still filled her throat and made her mouth water.

Crimson text on a black background.

_I don't bite...unless you ask me nicely._

A red leather jacket the same shade as fresh blood was slipped over her shoulders and she tossed her bag into the backseat of her car before typing in an address into the Google Maps app and checking the estimated time of arrival. It would be a long drive, but since she didn't need to stop for food or bathroom breaks, just for gas, Emma would reach the little town of Storybrooke Maine just before the sun rose over the ocean.

Her prey had slipped from her grasp once, but the hunt was far from over.

It was just beginning.


End file.
